The Black Book
“It really is a simple thing. The Noblesse Oblige demands that all great Blood be used to serve the Empire, but that means little without the means to give service. That is our burden, and we take it very seriously.” - Trivox Eridanus Kassion Mardux, 1452nd Triumvirate The Accounting The Black Book is a covert expense account utilized by many Noble Houses including House Crux, House Aquila, House Pyxis, House Serpens, and House Reticulum. The fund is maintained by House Eridanus. The process from the perspective of the clients is quite simple: a House pays into the account and they withdraw funding as needed. Occasionally, they will be instructed to pay into the account further, but this is quite rare despite the withdraws always being greater than the deposits. On the side of House Eridanus, the process is much more complicated. Through a combination of interest growth, H.E.X. investment, and a fair bit of money laundering, Eridanus maintains the account and ensures the money of the Houses goes as far as possible without leaving a trace. House Eridanus does not maintain this service as a charity though. The River utilizes the frequent influx of liquid capital to numerous ends, not least of which is the manipulation of the House Eridanus eXchange, or HEX. The HEX markets are the backbone of the sector-wide economy, and House Eridanus carefully manipulates the rise and fall of stocks to maintain order in their own way. In addition to the high minded ideas of maintaining the Imperial way through careful economic espionage, House Eridanus profits heavily from its machinations, buying low and selling high, but never enough to garner attention. Outside the HEX markets, Eridanus often uses the money to fund loans that then gain interest that goes back into the fund, after a healthy payout to the House of course… and so it flows. A portion of the money skimmed from the expansion of the fund is also allocated to Eridanus’s own deniable asset, the Margin Scheme. In order to maintain the security of the Black Book, no digital record is kept of the transactions. All accounting is done by hand, on paper, in one of several actual black books. All that is written is the expenditures and the incoming capital, no details are asked for or given from either side of the transactions. The books are kept inside of a hermetically sealed vault that is temperature controlled to maintain their condition. Very few Eridanii are trusted with knowledge of the Black Book, and fewer still trusted with its maintenance. :“They care not from whence the River flows, only that it does.” - Savii Eridanus Armond Veron Developmental History :“Don’t get me wrong, there are a lot of terrifying people in the Empire. But the things House Eridanus does with money might be near the very top.” - Vogt Crux Lanchassar Berellium Little is known about the true origins of the Black Book. The Scream destroyed all but the pure financial records themselves. However, during the Imperial Civil wars, a great many forces required funding outside the watchful eyes of the Blood Eagle’s agents. Eridanus played a shell game against what would become PRISM for years in order to get clean money into the hands of those who would topple the brutal Empress’s reign, a notable example being the Protractors of Lovelace. Today, the Black Book is used by the majority of the noble houses because everyone has a little secret to hide. However, the account is rarely talked about because admitting knowledge of this account risks expulsion from its use. Category:House Eridanus Category:House Eridanus Products